1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a service providing system, an information processing apparatus, a service providing server and a service providing method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and a service providing server that require authentication, and a service providing system including the information processing apparatus and the service providing server, and relates to a user authentication method performed by the information processing apparatus and the service providing server.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in order to share software resources or hardware resources, plural servers and apparatuses are connected to a network such as a LAN (Local Area Network) and the Internet and the like (refer to patent document 1, for example).
In ordinary cases, for using the plural servers and the apparatuses on the network such as the LAN or the Internet, it is necessary to perform authentication for each of the servers and the apparatuses. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an example of a system using the servers and the apparatuses.
In the system shown in FIG. 1, based on a request from the client PC 30, a document stored in an image forming apparatus 10 is transferred to a distribution server 20. In this example, it is assumed that authentication information of the image forming apparatus 10 is authentication information [A], and that authentication information of the distribution server 20 is authentication information [B]. In the system shown in FIG. 1, since the authentication information [A] of the image forming apparatus 10 is different from the authentication information [B] of the distribution server 20, it is necessary to perform authentication for each of the image forming apparatus 10 and the distribution server 20.
FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of another example of a system using the plural servers and apparatuses. In the system of FIG. 2, based on operation on an operation panel of the image forming apparatus 10, a document stored in the image forming apparatus 10 is transferred to the distribution server 20. For example, in the case of operation from the operation panel in the system shown in FIG. 2, there are many cases in which authentication for the distribution server 20 is omitted although authentication for the image forming apparatus 10 is performed.    [Patent Document 1] Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2003-122514
In the system shown in FIG. 1, it is necessary to perform authentication for each of the image forming apparatus 10 and the distribution server 20. Therefore, as the number of servers and apparatuses increases, necessary number of times of authentication increases, so that there is a problem in that the user operating the client PC 30 is forced to perform complicated works.
In the case of the system of FIG. 2, although authentication is performed in the image forming apparatus 10, authentication in the distribution server 20 is omitted. In ordinary cases, when the image forming apparatus 10 transfers a stored document to the distribution server 20, the sender can be selected freely. Therefore, there is a problem in that the user of the image forming apparatus 10 can perform “spoofing of sender”.
Even in the case of the system shown in FIG. 2, when authentication is performed for each of the image forming apparatus 10 and the distribution server 20, there is a problem in that a user operating the operation panel is forced to perform complicated works.